The Doctor

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THE DOCTOR

A TALE OF THE ROCKIES


By Ralph Connor



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE OLD STONE MILL

II. THE DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE

III. THE RAISING

IV. THE DANCE

V. THE NEW TEACHER

VI. THE YOUNG DOCTOR

VII. THE GOOD CHEER DEPARTMENT

VIII. BEN'S GANG

IX. LOVE'S TANGLED WAYS

X. FOR A LADY'S HONOUR

XI. IOLA'S CHOICE

XII. HE THAT LOVETH HIS LIFE

XIII. A MAN THAT IS AN HERETIC REJECT

XIV. WHOSOEVER LOOKETH UPON A WOMAN

XV. THE SUPERINTENDENT'S METHODS

XVI. THE CHALLENGE OF DEATH

XVII. THE FIGHT WITH DEATH

XVIII. THE MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CROW'S NEST

XIX. THE LADY OF KUSKINOOK

XX. UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN

XXI. TO WHOM HE FORGAVE MOST

XXII. THE HEART'S REST

XXIII. THE LAST CALL

XXIV. FOR LOVE'S SAKE




THE DOCTOR




I

THE OLD STONE MILL


There were two ways by which one could get to the Old Stone Mill. One,
from the sideroad by a lane which, edged with grassy, flower-decked
banks, wound between snake fences, along which straggled irregular
clumps of hazel and blue beech, dogwood and thorn bushes, and beyond
which stretched on one side fields of grain just heading out this bright
June morning, and on the other side a long strip of hay fields of mixed
timothy and red clover, generous of colour and perfume, which ran along
the snake fence till it came to a potato patch which, in turn, led to an
orchard where the lane began to drop down to the Mill valley.

At the crest of the hill travellers with even the merest embryonic
aesthetic taste were forced to pause. For there the valley with its
sweet loveliness lay in full view before them. Far away to the right,
out of an angle in the woods, ran the Mill Creek to fill the pond which
brimmed gleaming to the green bank of the dam. Beyond the pond a sloping
grassy sward showed green under an open beech and maple woods. On the
hither side of the pond an orchard ran down hill to the water's edge,
and at the nearer corner of the dam, among a clump of ancient willows,
stood the Old Stone Mill, with house attached, and across the mill yard
the shed and barn, all neat as a tidy housewife's kitchen. To the left
of the mill, with its green turf-clad dam and placid gleaming pond,
wandered off green fields of many shading colours, through which ran the
Mill Creek, foaming as if enraged that it should have been even for a
brief space paused in its flow to serve another's will. Then, beyond the
many-shaded fields, woods again, spruce and tamarack, where the stream
entered, and maple and beech on the higher levels. That was one way to
the mill, the way the farmers took with their grist or their oats for
old Charley Boyle to grind.

The other way came in by the McKenzies' lane from the Concession Line,
which ran at right angles to the sideroad. This was a mere foot path,
sometimes used by riders who came for a bag of flour or meal when the
barrel or bin had unawares run low. This path led through the beech
and maple woods to the farther end of the dam, where it divided, to the
right if one wished to go to the mill yard, and across the dam if one
wished to reach the house. From any point of view the Old Stone Mill,
with its dam and pond, its surrounding woods and fields and orchard,
made a picture of rare loveliness, and suggestive of deep fulness of
peace. At least, the woman standing at the dam, where the shade of the
willows fell, found it so. The beauty, the quiet of the scene, rested
her; the full sweet harmony of those many voices in which Nature pours
forth herself on a summer day, stole in upon her heart and comforted
her. She was a woman of striking appearance. Tall and straight she
stood, a figure full of strength; her dark face stamped with features
that bespoke her Highland ancestry, her black hair shot with silver
threads, parting in waves over her forehead; her eyes deep set, black
and sombre, glowing with that mystic light that shines only in eyes that
have for generations peered into the gloom of Highland glens.

"Ay, it's a bonny spot," she sighed, her rugged face softening as she
gazed. "It's a bonny spot, and it would be a sore thing to part it."

As she stood looking and listening her face changed. Through the hum of
the mill there pierced now and then the notes of a violin.

"Oh, that weary fiddle!" she said with an impatient shake of her head.
But in a few moments the impatience in her face passed into tender pity.
"Ah, well, well," she sighed, "poor man, it is the kind heart he has,
whateffer."

She passed down the bank into the house, then through the large
living-room, speckless in its thrifty order, into a longer room that
joined house to mill. She glanced at the tall clock that stood beside
the door. "Mercy me!" she cried, "it's time my own work was done. But
I'll just step in and see--" She opened the door leading to the mill and
stood silent. A neat little man with cheery, rosy face, clean-shaven,
and with a mass of curly hair tinged with grey hanging about his
forehead, was seated upon a chair tipped back against the wall, playing
a violin with great vigour and unmistakable delight.

"The mill's a-workin', mother," he cried without stopping his flying
fingers, "and I'm keepin' my eye upon her."

She shook her head reproachfully at her husband. "Ay, the mill is
workin' indeed, but it's not of the mill you're thinking."

"Of what then?" he cried cheerily, still playing.

"It is of that raising and of the dancing, I'll be bound you."

"Wrong, mother," replied the little man exultant. "Sure you're wrong.
Listen to this. What is it now?"

"Nonsense," cried the woman, "how do I know?"

"But listen, Elsie, darlin'," he cried, dropping into his Irish brogue.
"Don't you mind--" and on he played for a few minutes. "Now you mind,
don't you?"

"Of course, I mind, 'The Lass o' Gowrie.' But what of it?" she cried,
heroically struggling to maintain her stern appearance.

But even as she spoke her face, so amazing in its power of swiftly
changing expression, took on a softer look.

"Ah, there you are," cried the little man in triumph, "now I know you
remember. And it's twenty-four years to-morrow, Elsie, darlin', since--"
He suddenly dropped his violin on some meal bags at his side and sprang
toward her.

"Go away with you." She closed the door quickly behind her. "Whisht now!
Be quate now, I'm sayin'. You're just as foolish as ever you were."

"Foolish? No mother, not foolish, but wise yon time, although it's
foolish enough I've been often since. And," he added with a sigh,
"it's not much luck I've brought you, except for the boys. They'll do,
perhaps, what I've not done."

"Whisht now, lad," said his wife, patting his shoulder gently, for a
great tenderness flowed over her eloquent face. "What has come to
you to-day? Go away now to your work," she added in her former tone,
"there's the hay waiting, you know well. Go now and I'll watch the
grist."

"And why would you watch the grist, mother?" said a voice from the
mill door, as a young man of eighteen years stepped inside. He was his
mother's son. The same swarthy, rugged face, the same deep-set, sombre
eyes, the same suggestion of strength in every line of his body, of
power in every move he made and of passion in every glance. "Indeed, you
will do no such thing. Dad'll watch the grist and I'll slash down the
hay in no time. And do you know, mother," he continued in a tone of
suppressed excitement, "have you heard the big news?" His mother waited.
"He's coming home to-day. He's coming with the Murrays, and Alec will
bring him to the raising."

A throb of light swept across the mother's face, but she only said in a
voice calm and steady, "Well, you'd better get that hay down. It'll be
late enough before it is in."

"Listen to her, Barney," cried her husband scornfully. "And she'll not
be going to the raising today, either. The boy'll be home by one in the
morning, and sure that's time enough."

Barney stood looking at his mother with a quiet smile on his face. "We
will have dinner early," he said, "and I'll just take a turn at the
hay."

She turned and entered the house without a word, while he took down the
scythe from its peg, removed the blade from the snath and handed it to
his father.

"Give it a turn or two," he said; "you're better than me at this."

"Here then," replied his father, handing him the violin, "and you're
better at this."

"They would not say so to-night, Dad," replied the lad as he took the
violin from his father's hands, looking it over reverently. In a very
few minutes his father came back with the scythe ready for work; and
Barney, fastening it to the snath, again set off up the lane.




II

THE DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE


Two hours later, down from the dusty sideroad, a girl swinging a milk
pail in her hand turned into the mill lane. As she stepped from the
glare and dust of the highroad into the lane, it seemed as if Nature had
been waiting to find in her the touch that makes perfect; so truly, in
all her fresh daintiness, did she seem a bit of that green shady lane
with its sweet fragrance and its fresh beauty.

It had taken sixteen years of wholesome country life to round that
supple form into its firm lines of grace, and to tint those moulded
cheeks with the dainty bloom that seemed a reflection from the thistle
heads that nodded at her through the snake fence. It had taken sixteen
years of pure-hearted, joyous living to lend those eyes, azure as
the sky above, their brave, clear glance; sixteen years of unsullied
maidenhood to endow her with that divine something of mystery which,
with its shy reserve and fearless trust, awakens reverence and rebukes
impurity as with the vision of God.

Her sunbonnet, fallen back from her yellow hair, shining golden in the
sun, revealed a face strong, brave and kind, with just a touch of
pride. The pride showed most, however, in the poise of her head and the
carriage of her shoulders. But when the mobile lips parted in a smile
over the straight rows of white teeth one forgot the pride and thought
only of the soft persuasive lips.

As she sprang up the green turf, she drew in deep breaths of
clover-scented air, and exclaimed aloud, "Oh, this is good!" She peeped
through the snake fence at the luscious rich masses of red clover. "What
a bed!" she cried; "I believe I'll try it." Over the fence she sprang,
and in a thorn tree's shade, deep in the fragrant blossoms, she
stretched herself at full length upon her back. For some minutes she
lay in the luxury of that fragrant bed looking up through the spreading
thorn tree branches to the blue sky with its floating, fleecy clouds
far overhead. The lazy drone of the bees in the clover beside her, the
languorous summer airs swaying into gentle nodding the timothy stalks
just above her head, and all the soothing sounds of a summer morning,
that many-voiced choir that sings to the great God Nature's glad content
that all is so very good, rested and comforted the girl's heart and
body, making her know as she had not known before how very weary she had
been and how deep an ache her heart had held.

"Oh, it's good!" she cried again, stretching her hands at full length
above her head. "I wish I could stay for one whole day, just here in the
clover with the bees and the birds and the trees and the clouds and the
blue sky, no children, no dinner, no tidying up."

As she lay there it seemed to her as if she had thrown off for the
moment the load she had been carrying for many months. For a year
she had tried to fill in the minister's household her mother's place.
Without a day's warning the burden had been laid upon her shoulders,
but with the fine courage that youth and love combine to give, denying
herself even the poor luxury of indulgence of the grief that had fallen
upon her young heart, she had given herself, without thought of anything
heroic in her giving, to the caring for the house and the household, and
the comforting as best she could of her father, suddenly bereft of her
who had been to him not wife alone, but comrade and counsellor as well.
Without a thought, she had at once surrendered all the bright plans that
she, with her mother, had cherished for the cultivation of her varied
talents, and had turned to the dull, monotonous routine of household
duties with never a thought but that she must do it. There was no one
else.

"I believe I am tired," she said again aloud; then letting her heart
follow her eyes into and beyond the blue above her, she cried softly, "O
mother, how tired you must have been with it all, and how much you did
for me! For me, great, big lump that I am! Dear little mother. Oh, if
I had only known! Oh, we were all so thoughtless!" She stretched up
her hands again to the blue sky with its fleecy clouds. "For your sake,
mother dear," she whispered. Not often had any seen those brave eyes dim
with tears. Not often since that day when they had carried her mother
out from the Manse and left her behind with the weeping, clinging
children, and even now she hastily wiped the tears away, chiding herself
the while. "I never saw HER cry," she said to herself, "not once, except
for some of us. And I will try. I MUST try. It is hard to give up," and
again the tears welled up in the brave blue eyes. "Nonsense," she cried
impatiently, sitting up straight, "don't be a big, selfish baby. They're
just the dearest little darlings in the world, and I'll do my best for
them."

Her moment of self-pity was gone in a flood of shamed indignation.
She locked her hands round her knees and looked about her. "It is a
beautiful world after all. And how near the beauty is to us; just over
the fence and you are in the thick of it. Oh, but this is great!" Once
more she rolled in an ecstasy of luxurious delight in the clover and lay
again supine, revelling in that riot of caressing sounds and scents.

"Kir-r-r-ink-a-chink, kir-r-r-ink-a-chink--"

She sprang up alert and listening. "That is old Charley, I suppose, or
Barney, perhaps, sharpening his scythe." She climbed up the conveniently
jutting ends of the fence rails and looked over the field.

"It's Barney," she said, shading her eyes with her hand; "I wonder he
does not cut his fingers." She sat herself down upon the top rail and
leaned against the stake.

"My! what a sweep," she said in admiring tones as the young man swayed
to and fro in all the rhythmic grace of the mower's stride, swinging
easily now backward the curving blade and then forward in a cutting
sweep, clean and swift, laying the even swath. Alas! the clattering
machine-knives have driven off from our hay-fields the mower's art with
all its rhythmic grace.

Those were days when men were famous according as they could "cut off
the heels of a rival mower." There are that grieve that, one by one,
from field and from forest, are banished those ancient arts of daily
toil by which men were wont to prove their might, their skill of hand
and eye, their invincible endurance. But there still offer in life's
stern daily fight full opportunity to prove manhood in ways less
picturesque perhaps, but no less truly testing.

Down the swath came Barney, his sinewy body swinging in very poetry of
motion.

"Doesn't he do it well!" said the girl, following with admiring eyes
every movement of his well-poised frame. "How big he is! Why--" and her
blue eyes widened with startled surprise, "he's almost a man!" The tint
of the thistle bloom deepened in her cheek. She glanced down and made
as if to spring to the ground; then settling herself resolutely back
against her fence stake, she exclaimed, "Pshaw! I don't care. He is just
a boy. Anyway, I'm not going to mind Barney Boyle."

On came the mower in mighty sweeps, cutting the swath clean out to the
end.

"Well done!" cried the girl. "You'll be cutting off Long John's heels in
a year or so."

"A year or so! If I can't do it to-day I never can. But I don't want to
blow."

"You needn't. They're all talking about you, with your binding and
pitching and cradling, and what not."

"They are, are they? Who is good enough to waste breath on me?"

"Oh, everybody. The McKenzie girls were just telling me the other day."

"Oh, pshaw! I ran away from their crowd, but that's nothing."

"And I suppose you have not an idea how nice you look as you go swinging
along?"

"Do I? That's the only time then."

"Oh, now you're fishing, and I'm not going to bite. Where did you learn
the scythe?"

"Where? Right here where we had to, Dick and I. By the way, he's coming
home to-day." He glanced at her face quickly as he said this, but her
face showed only a frank pleasure.

"To-day? Good. Won't your mother be glad?"

"Yes. And some other people, too," said Barney.

"And who, particularly?"

A sudden shyness seemed to seize the young man, but recovering himself,
"Well, I guess I will, myself, a little. This is the first time he has
ever been away. We never slept a night apart from each other as long
as I can mind till he went to college last year. He used to put his
arm just round me here," touching his breast. "I'll tell you the first
nights after he went I used to feel for him in the dark and be sick to
find the place empty."

"Well," said the girl doubtfully, "I hope he won't be different. College
does make a difference, you know."

"Different! Dick! He'd better not. I'll thrash the daylights out of him.
But he won't be different. Not to us, nor," he added shyly, "to you."

"Oh, to me?" She laughed lightly. "He had better not try any airs with
me."

"What would you do?" inquired Barney. "You couldn't take it out of his
hide."

"Oh, I'd fix him. I'd take him down," she replied with a knowing shake
of her head.

"Poor Dick! He's in for a hard time," replied Barney. "But nothing can
change Dick. And I am awful glad he's coming to-day, in time for the
raising, too."

"The raising? Oh, yes. The McLeods'. Yes, I remember. And," regretfully,
"a big supper and a big spree afterwards in the new barn."

"Are not you going?" inquired Barney.

"I don't know. They want me to go to help, but I don't think I'll go. I
don't think father would like me to go, and,"--a pause--"anyway, I don't
think I can get away."

"Oh, pshaw! Get Old Nancy in. She can take care of the children for
once. You would like the raising. It's great fun."

"Oh! wouldn't I, though? It's fine to see them racing. They get so wild
and yell so."

"Well, come on then. You must come. They'll all be disappointed, if you
don't. And Dick is coming that way, too. Alec Murray is to bring him on
his way home from town." Again Barney glanced keenly at her face, but he
saw only puzzled uncertainty there.

"Well, I don't know. We'll see. At any rate, I must go now."

"Wait," cried Barney, "I'll go with you. We're having dinner early
to-day." He hung up the scythe in the thorn tree and threw the stone at
the foot.

"I wish you would promise to come," he said earnestly.

"Do you, really?" The blue eyes turned full upon him.

"Of course I do. It will be lots better fun if you are there." The
frank, boyish honesty of his tone seemed to disappoint the blue eyes.
Together in silence they set off down the lane.

"Well," she said, resuming their conversation, "I don't think I can go,
but I'll see. You'll be playing for the dancing, I suppose?"

"No. I won't play if Dan is around, and I guess he'll be there. I may
spell him a little perhaps."

"Then you'll be dancing yourself. You're great at that, I know."

"Me? Not much. It's Dick. Oh, he's a dandy! He's a bird! You ought to
see him! I'll make him do the Highland Fling."

"Oh, Dick, Dick!" she cried impatiently, "everything is Dick with you."

Barney glanced at her, and after a moment's pause said, "Yes. I guess
you're right. Everything is pretty much Dick with me. Next to my mother,
Dick is the finest in all the world."

At the crest of the hill they stood looking silently upon the scene
spread out before them.

"There," said Barney, "if I live to be a hundred years, I can't forget
that," and he waved his hand over the valley. Then he continued, "I tell
you what, with the moon just over the pond there making a track of
light across the pond--" She glanced shyly at him. The sombre eyes were
looking far away.

"I know," she said softly; "it must be lovely."

Through the silence that followed there rose and fell with musical
cadence a call long and clear, "Who-o-o-hoo."

"That's mother," said Barney, answering the call with a quick shout.
"You'll be in time for dinner."

"Dinner!" she cried with a gasp. "I'll have to get my buttermilk and
other things and hurry home." And she ran at full speed down the hill
and into the mill yard, followed by Barney protesting that it was too
hot to run.

"How are you, Mrs. Boyle?" she panted. "I'm in an awful hurry. I'm after
father's buttermilk and that recipe, you know."

Mrs. Boyle's eyes rested lovingly upon her flushed face.

"Indeed, there's no hurry, Margaret. Barney should not be letting you
run."

"Letting me!" she laughed defiantly. "Indeed, he had all he could do to
keep up."

"And that I had," said Barney, "and, mother, tell her she must come to
the raising."

"And are you not going?" said the older woman.

"I don't think so. You know father--well, he wouldn't care for me to be
at the dance."

"Yes, yes, I know," quickly replied Mrs. Boyle, "but you might just come
with me and look quietly on. And, indeed, the change will be doing
you good. I will just call for you, and speak to your father this
afternoon."

"Oh, I don't know, Mrs. Boyle. I hardly think I ought."

"Hoots, lassie! Come away, then, into the milk-house."

Back among the overhanging willows stood the little whitewashed log
milkhouse, built over a little brook that gurgled clear and cool over
the gravelly floor.

"What a lovely place," said Margaret, stepping along the foot stones.

"Ay, it's clean and sweet," said Mrs. Boyle. "And that is what you most
need with the milk and butter."

She took up an earthen jar from the gravelly bed and filled the girl's
pail with buttermilk.

"Thank you, Mrs. Boyle. And now for that recipe for the scones."

"Och, yes!" said Mrs. Boyle. "There's no recipe at all. It is just this
way--" And she elucidated the mysteries of sconemaking.

"But they will not taste a bit like yours, I'm sure," cried Margaret, in
despair.

"Never you fear, lassie. You hurry away home now and get your dinner
past, and we will call for you on our way."

"Here, lassie," she cried, "your father will like this. It is only
churned th' day." She rolled a pat of butter in a clean linen cloth,
laid it between two rhubarb leaves and set it in a small basket.

"Good-bye," said the girl as she kissed the dark cheek. "You're far too
kind to me."

"Poor lassie, poor lassie, I would I could be kinder. It's a good girl
you are, and a brave one."

"Not very brave, I fear," replied the girl, as she quickly turned away
and ran up the hill and out of sight.

"Poor motherless lassie," said Mrs. Boyle, looking after her with loving
eyes; "it's a heavy care she has, and the minister, poor man, he can't
see it. Well, well, she has the promise."




III

THE RAISING


The building of a bank-barn was a watershed in farm chronology. Toward
that event or from it the years took their flight. For many summers the
big boulders were gathered from the fields and piled in a long heap at
the bottom of the lane on their way to their ultimate destination, the
foundation of the bank-barn. During the winter, previous the "timber was
got out." From the forest trees, maple, beech or elm--for the pine was
long since gone--the main sills, the plates, the posts and cross-beams
were squared and hauled to the site of the new barn. Hither also the
sand from the pit at the big hill, and the stone from the heap at the
bottom of the lane, were drawn. And before the snow had quite gone
the lighter lumber--flooring, scantling, sheeting and shingles--were
marshalled to the scene of action. Then with the spring the masons and
framers appeared and began their work of organising from this mass of
material the structure that was to be at once the pride of the farm and
the symbol of its prosperity.

From the very first the enterprise was carried on under the
acknowledged, but none the less critical, observation of the immediate
neighbourhood. For instance, it had been a matter of free discussion
whether "them timbers of McLeod's new barn wasn't too blamed heavy,"
and it was Jack McKenzie's openly expressed opinion that "one of them
'purline plates' was so all-fired crooked that it would do for both
sides at onct." But the confidence of the community in Jack Murray,
framer, was sufficiently strong to allay serious forebodings. And by the
time the masons had set firm and solid the many-coloured boulders in
the foundation, the community at large had begun to take interest in the
undertaking.

The McLeod raising was to be an event of no ordinary importance. It
had the distinction of being, in the words of Jack Murray, framer,
"the biggest thing in buildin's ever seen in them parts." Indeed, so
magnificent were its dimensions that Ben Fallows, who stood just five
feet in his stocking soles, and was, therefore, a man of considerable
importance in his estimation, was overheard to exclaim with an air of
finality, "What! two twenty-foot floors and two thirty-foot mows! It
cawn't be did." Such was, therefore, the magnitude of the undertaking,
and such the far-famed hospitality of the McLeods, that no man within
the range of the family acquaintance who was not sick, or away from
home, or prevented by some special act of Providence, failed to appear
at the raising that day.